ABSTRACTDeogratias is just a boy. Benina is just a girl. Teenagers like teenagers everywhere. Only he is a Hutu, and she is a Tutsi - so say their ID cards. We are in Rwanda in the days leading to a swift and gruesome genocide; the world will watch and do nothing. In less than a hundred days, eight hundred thousand human beings will be hacked to death. Moment by moment, piece by piece, J.P. Stassen skillfully builds a masterpiece, an unforgettable tale that probes man's inhumanity to man. His eloquence, his storytelling power, and his sheer poetry elevate this harrowing story to the rank of a testimonial to one of the darkest chapters in recent human history. With great skill and understanding, Stassen's Deogratias takes us back and forth in time, showing only before and after the killings - and inexorably revealing the grip of madness and horror on one young boy and his country. Difficult, beautiful, honest, and heartbreaking, this is a masterwork by a major artist of our time." - inside front cover.
